Harsh Truths
by Jayde1
Summary: Reality comes to Nerima


  
Ranma is dead.  
  
It's not like it was a surprise. I mean, he's been on life support   
and unresponsive for almost a year now. I guess we were all holding   
our breath, expecting that the machines would turn off and then he'd   
blink, sit up, and probably blame it all on Akane's cooking. He was   
always so invincible before. Nothing could touch him.  
  
I thought at first that it was another weird magic spell, one   
affecting the entire city. I don't think so any more. It's more like  
the exact opposite. It's like, after being away for so long, reality   
suddenly snapped back into existence in Nerima.  
  
  
Harsh Truths  
  
  
I haven't heard from any of the Amazons. The immigration service that  
never surfaced when mystical princes came to town showed up on their   
door in full riot gear. Cologne was deported immediately. However   
many thousands of years of Chinese Amazon tradition defeated with tear   
gas and beanbag rounds. She's probably dead by now. Shampoo and   
Mousse are only staying in the country long enough to serve their   
prison sentences; attempted murder, assault and battery, and Kami-sama   
only knows how many counts of property damage each. Mousse was also   
found guilty of several dozen counts of assault with a deadly weapon.   
Shampoo is in for attempted rape, the courts having decided that   
passion spice is no different than spiking your date's drink.  
  
On the other end of the fiancée front, Ukyou got off light for her  
murder try. Extenuating circumstances and all that. True to his   
ninja upbringing, Konatsu vanished without a trace while she was   
repaying her debt to society. Tsubasa also left sometime before she   
got out, and since then she's come to grips with almost everything.   
She wears skirts and dresses, and we're considering working together  
to make Ucchan's a chain.   
  
The family Kuno has been committed to the nation's finest psychiatric   
hospitals. The 'Blue Thunder' and his father have been diagnosed with   
some combination of obsessive compulsive disorder and delusions, while   
Kodachi has the added bonus of psychosis and the inability to separate   
right from wrong. I don't think they'll ever get out, not without   
enough medication to turn them into zombies. It turns out they're all  
resistant to all but the strongest drugs.  
  
Speaking of the wonders of modern pharmecuticals: Daddy, Kasumi, and   
Akane are all fine. For Akane and Daddy the mood swings are much less   
violent, and Kasumi is actually expressing emotions other than that   
flat calm. She and Dr. Tofu haven't set a date yet, but since he's   
suddenly become rational while she's around I can't imagine that   
they're going to wait long. Akane in turn has calmed down and may   
actually be interested in Gosunkugi now that he's stopped the voodoo   
and come out of the woodwork.  
  
It may or may not have anything to do with Happosai's death- failure   
of pretty much every major organ and bodily system due to extreme old   
age- but Hinako the chi vampire seems to have frozen as an adult.   
She's pulling out all the stops to catch Daddy. More power to her, in   
my opinion. Now that's he's finally stable he needs someone. Maybe   
she'll help him restart classes at the dojo like he's been talking   
about.  
  
The remains of the Saotome family have splintered. Genma is in   
prison, mostly on theft charges, and Nodoka divorced him. I think it   
was harder for her to give up the Saotome katana than it was for her   
to give up the name. I saw her at Ranma's funeral. She was with a   
man I didn't recognize, and leaned into him pretty hard. I don't think  
she'll stay single very long. For his sake, though, I hope her   
definition of 'manly' died with her son.  
  
Ranma. And, of course, his antitheses Ryoga. It was so STUPID.   
Probably the finest martial artists in the world. They were acting   
like always; Ryoga had been gone for a week or so, then he showed up   
yelling about how he'd seen Hell and it was all Ranma's fault. The   
usual. They were sprinting along the roofs- I wasn't there, but I've   
heard it from eyewitnesses- when every single law of physics that   
they've so casually violated caught up with them.  
  
A tile. A single, stupid, tile on the roof. It was loose and it was   
slippery (probably from one of Nerima's improbable Jusenkyo triggering  
rainstorms, which have all but vanished) and Ranma stepped on it. He   
fell three stories and cracked his head open the cement. Plain and   
simple. The paramedics I never knew we had brought him back, but he   
never woke up. And now he's dead.  
  
Ryoga's just as pointless. He was waving that lead umbrella of his   
when he lost the strength to hold it up. It fell on him and fractured  
three vertebrae in his back. He'll never walk again, and it sounds   
like Akari is leaving him because he's incapable of beating her pig   
again. The decision was made not to prosecute, despite the fact that   
he'd been yelling "RANMA! PREPARE TO DIE!" since junior high. They   
took pity on him, and it was an accident anyway. A stupid accident.  
  
  
Me? It took every favor I had, and several I didn't, but I escaped   
the blackmail and extortion charges. If I wanted to get back into my   
business I'd be back at square one, but it doesn't matter. What's the  
point? My clients are gone, my sources are gone, and my reasons are   
gone. There's no reason for me to be the Ice Queen any more. I can   
be just a normal high school student in a town where every single   
activity doesn't have the prefix of "martial arts." I can have a   
husband, a career, children, and, like the Americans say, a white   
picket fence. All the things normal people do with their lives.  
  
  
So why does it still seem so wrong?  
  
  
  
  
--------------  
1:48 AM. I really need a hobby.  
This just sort of came on its own. It could have turned into a   
spamfic, but it went dark instead.  
  
Ranma's not mine. You know the drill.  
  
Jayde  
http://home.dencity.com/dreamcatcher-studios/  
dreamin@notme.com 


End file.
